Its Ok To Be A Quitter.

I've made a lot of goals for myself this year, some of them are a lot more attainable than others, some I've already reached and one in particular I'm still struggling with but I've made some really good strides toward.
I'm talking of course about my goal to quit smoking, you may recall the review I wrote on Voxiva's Text2Quit program, which is a very helpful program; unfortunately, I - much like anyone else who has been smoking for a long time - needed more than just one quit aid.

My second step in my goal to quit was reading Allen Carr's "The Easy Way To Quit", now, I'm not a fan of self-help books for a number of reasons, and though this book did at times reinforce a lot of the reasons I dislike the genre it was/is an invaluble tool for those who want to quit smoking. The book goes into at depth the brainwashing and social conditioning we experience as smokers, the reasons we smoke, and the way to begin to change your thinking in regards to smoking and quitting.

My third step was joining the "Ex Community", this site was by far the most welcoming and supportive of the sites that I came across, its kind of like a Facebook or Myspace for ex-smokers and those who are becoming exes. At the "Ex Community" you can make friends, earn badges, comment to others, post your own blog entries, and post things on your wall or on the walls of your friends. Its a fun and positive environment, full of very supportive folks.

My fourth and final step has been the NicoDerm patch. This has been the most effective for me, at least when I remember to put it on, I truly don't want a cigarette if I'm wearing the patch. There were few drawbacks with the patch, the only ones I experienced were slight levels of twitching (like I've had too much caffeine), itchiness were the patch is, and weird dreams if I happened to leave the patch on overnight (only did that once). I have had the patch catch on clothing and it does not stand up to the temps I like to shower at, other than that I've had no issues aside from remembering to put them on.

I've had a fair amount of success with a combination of these sites and products, I had even managed to completely quit for nearly 3 weeks. Sadly I've suffered a recent slip, and am smoking again. Thankfully its not a full slip, I haven't had more than 3 cigarettes in any one day, and as of today, I'm back to 0 and wearing the patch again.

Its not a quick process, to quit, and I know this, but I'm taking it seriously, its something I desire, and something I will do. I know that each time I slip and give in to smoking, I learn more about my personal reasons for smoking, besides just the addiction to nicotine. It becomes easier to not have a cig when I can rationalize why I want one.

My suggestion for those trying to quit would be to first join the Ex Community and then get yourself a copy of Allen Carr's "The Easy Way To Quit". NTRs are helpful, but not necessary. For me, between the book and the community, a lot of the fear and reluctance that many smokers experience when contemplating quitting, literally disappeared in a puff of smoke, the patch just soothes the cravings which really aren't as bad as they are often implied to be.

Would you like to take a survey?

Wait, before you answer that, what if I told you it was a paid survey? what if I told you that you could make anywhere from $0.50-$3 per survey? I bet you'd tell me you've already tried to make money with surveys and there is always a catch, or that the payouts don't make it worth your while, or any number of other reasons, valid reasons, why you don't want to join a paid survey site.

I speak from experience, After nearly having to abandon an email address, and getting nothing but frustration from survey after survey which I didn't qualify and very small payouts for the ones I did, for I'd given up, I was only going to take surveys if they came through Swagbucks.
I went through and deactivated all my survey site accounts, unsubscribed from the emails and let out a sigh of relief as my spam mail slowly began to dwindle.

Not long after this, with a new wariness and skepticism I once again began to search for another means to earn gift cards and such. My main focus was on Amazon gift cards because you can really buy just about anything on Amazon, and among other things, I had my sights set on a Kindle Fire.

I don't remember what exactly my search phrase was but one of the sites that turned up was something called Amazon Mechanical Turk, or Mturk for short. Now after my previous experiences there was no way I was going to just sign up for it without a bit of research. After I'd satisfied myself that it was not only legit but it wouldn't flood my email I signed up for an account.

Mturk is a virtual marketplace where requesters can find workers, and workers can find work, the hits range from surveys to writing tasks, and many more, some are specialized some are not, but you can always find something that you are qualified for.
From the requesters side, it works like this: say you are a University student working on a thesis and you need to gather information, well with Mturk its very easy for you to gather your info, all you have to do is submit your survey to the site, set the number of people you want to take the survey, and how much you plan to pay for each hit, then you just sit back, and wait for your results.

From the workers side its much simpler, you simply decide on the amount of money you wish to make per task and then search for hits you are qualified for, after you've been active for 10 days you can either transfer your earnings to an Amazon gift card or transfer it into an attached bank account (sadly no PayPal option). The bank transfer takes a few days, and I have not tried it yet so sadly I have no information there.

I was skeptical to be honest, I really didn't think I'd actually earn anything this way but after a few days the hits started being approved, my approval rating went up, more hits became open to me, and my account balance went up.  I joined a forum called TurkerNation and they not only offered very helpful tips but gave me proof this was a legitimate way to earn money.

Not a lot of money, mind you, this is not a way to pay bills, but you can easily make 10 or more a day, I've been using the site for a bit over a month and I tend to do mostly surveys, as I can average about 3-5 in an hour, and I never do hits that pay less than $0.30, but I've also done writing hits, things like 150+ word blog posts and reviews, for these I am generally paid between $1-3 per hit.  I only "turk" in the evenings, and only for an hour or two so I average roughly $5 a day.

Doesn't sound like much? Well, just a few days ago I was able to purchase the Kindle I wanted, and I'm already planning my next purchase.

Check it out for yourself, do your own research, sign up at Mturk and check out TurkerNation, its a great way to make some extra money.

Free stuff, the fun and easy way.

There is so much going on, new releases in both books and music, new electronics and websites. I really have been putting off updating because I didn't even know where to start.  That won't cut it, so I thought I'd tell you all about where I've been spending a good portion of my web time and what I've been getting there.

You may have noticed the widgets in my sidebar, you may even have clicked on them to check out what they were about, but if not, well even if you have, I'm going to go into a little deeper detail about one of the sites.

The site I'm going to tell you about today is Swagbucks.com,

Click to find out how!

You maybe familiar with it, you may even be a member, I know I was a member for easily a year before I started to actively use it, but I'm so glad I decided to give it another shot, and I'm going to tell you why, but first let me tell you about the site.

Swagbucks, is a loyalty program that rewards its users (called "Swaggernauts") with "swagbucks" which can be redeemed for entries in "Swagstakes" or saved for things like jewelry, electronics, gift certificates and even real money if you have a paypal account!

Earning Swagbucks is easy, there are a number of ways you can earn and it can be lots of fun, I have a couple of favorite ways to do it.
First, I use the search engine every time I need to search. Searches can garner anywhere from 5 to 35 swagbucks, the results are nearly as good as Google or other mainstream search engines, and its nothing to use a different engine if my results aren't satisfactory, there's also a bit of thrill when a random search turns up 8 swagbucks.
I also do the surveys, you can earn a lot from the surveys you qualify for, sadly a lot of them are looking for demographics I don't fit.
There are tasks to do, games to play and videos to watch, all of which earn swagbucks.

As I said earlier I've had an account for nearly a year, but I never really did much with it, however once I took a second look I really started getting into it, and I started earning stuff.  It quickly became one of my favorite sites.

Why Swagbucks? There are a number of similar loyalty programs out there, they're all the same right? Well I've tried a few of them but I keep going back to SB because they just don't compare on any level, not in their earn ratio, not in site aesthetics and definitely not in fun.

I've already earned over $30 in amazon.com gift certificates in just a few months time, and found some really fun games to pass an idle 10 minutes.
If you are an amazon nut like me, or you just like free stuff then you can't beat Swagbucks its like getting paid for just doing the things you already do online.

Up In Smoke

I was 16  when I had my first cigarette, I didn't think much of it even though my smoker friends told me that I was stupid to start and I'd get addicted, I didn't think I'd be like that, I was only smoking socially, and only one or two cigarettes at a time, I never expected it to become a daily habit but eventually it did.

By my early 20s I was smoking heavily and at 22 I tried to quit for the first time, it didn't work.
In the 10 years since I've tried  a number of times to quit, usually at the request of a partner or family member, I've tried cold turkey, the gum, substitution, all manner of "quitting methods" I've had varying levels of success with each method, but inevitably I always go back to the cigs.

Now I'm nearing my 33rd birthday, I have a child, and I'm still smoking, when I go outside for a cig my daughter asks me what I'm doing and why, and I feel bad when I have to explain not only that I'm addicted but also what that word means.

Mostly though I've begun to worry that she'll see both her father and I smoking and start the habit too,  maybe a lot younger than either one of us.

It really is time to quit.

This time I decided to go another way, I did a search for Smoking Cessation and started browsing.

I found, among all the information and scare tactics a very promising looking website.

Text2Quit is a web, email and SMS based program created by Voxiva, and developed with The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

After registering with the site, smokers are given access to a 5 step program to help prepare for and aid in quitting, the site offers a survey to determine the best cessation medication for you, once you've set up your smoker profile, the site tailors information specifically to your needs, you also get sticker stats on the site, that update on how much money you've saved, and how your health has improved since your last cigarette.
Once you've registered with the site and provided a contact number you will begin to receive helpful texts containing tips and tricks to keep you motivated to quit, you can send them a text any time requesting more tips or pep talks, and when strong cravings hit, there is even a trivia game to distract you.

You can also select a "Text Buddy" to receive motivational texts from, I picked the "buddy" who's smoker story was closest to my own.

Text2Quit is fun and surprisingly helpful and motivational, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to or plans on quitting.

I'm still working on quitting, but I've cut back drastically and the Text2Quit program is definitely helping, and I'm looking forward to soon being able to say "No, I don't  smoke".